Article theft...what to do about it

: I have read several articles, blogs, and message board postings concerning the rise of article theft. Specifically, this is where your article is lifted from your site without your permission or pulled from a third party site. In many ways I consider the internet to be the "Wild West" in terms of lawlessness. Ignoring established and set rules is common, meaning that us law abiding folks have our work cut out for us. It may surprise you, but I don't take action in many cases of known article theft. Why? Because, I just don't have the time to police everything. I know of authors who check every link to their site, but that work is both tedious and time consuming. A golden rule: If someone takes my article without my permission and the content and links are still in place, I don't worry about it. If they take my article and change the content, paragraph headers, the title, or steal credit for themselves, then I will contact the offending party and demand that they make the appropriate corrections. Even for links that are broken, I generally let these types of mistakes slide. When it comes to writing, time is money. I only respond to egregious violations while letting everything else slip by. I would rather spend my time making money instead of losing that time to chasing down violators. No, my policy or "golden rule" isn't perfect, but it saves me from being bogged down in what I find to be a wasteful pursuit.

Think you can t write articles think again

Writing articles and putting them out on the web for everyone to see can be a little intimidating though at first, especially if you don’t consider yourself a writer. Remember that you have a lot of knowledge in your area of expertise that your readers are looking for, so just start sharing that knowledge in articles. Let’s take a look at how you can start writing your first article today. Make a List One of the easiest ways to write an article is to start with a list. Take out a piece of paper and jot down 5 reasons why… or 10 tips to do…. Your list will of course depend on your particular business but here are some examples: 5 reasons to take a multi vitamin, 10 tips to get your child to eat his vegetables, Top 5 ways to loose weight. Now you write a little paragraph about each of your reasons or tips to explain them to your reader. Add an introduction to the topic at the beginning and close the article with a call to action such as start this today, visit this Start with an Outline I usually sit down with a pen and a notebook and start jotting down outlines for articles before I sit down at the computer to write the actual article. I come up with a title, a basic idea for the introduction and then just make a list of the major things I want to mention in the article. I also make a note of how I want to close the article. Then I’ll sit down and type out the entire article, modifying my outline as needed to make the article flow. Record Yourself If you’re more of a talker and love to tell others about your business, you may want to try recording yourself. Pretend you are telling a friend about a particular topic, maybe the benefits of using your product. Jut talk until you run out of stuff to say. Then listen to your recording and transcribe what you want to include in the article. You can record yourself on you computer, with a tape recorder, or use a MP3 player that records as well. Interview Someone Interviews make great articles as well. Find an expert on the topic you want to discuss in your article and either interview them in person (and record it) or email them the questions and have him or her send them back to you. Add a paragraph at the beginning about whom you interviewed and a little info about the person. You can close by summarizing the interview or highlighting a major point the expert made and encourage your readers to take action. You can use the article you just wrote on your website, on your blog, or in your newsletter. You should also submit it to the article directories. Write a little resource box or author bio to the bottom of your article. When someone picks up an article from the directory to add it to their site or newsletter, they will also include your resource box with the link to your website, driving free traffic to your site.